The Taste for Ethics

Transcription

1 The Taste for Ethics

2 The International Library of Environmental, Agricultural and Food Ethics VOLUME 7 Editors Michiel Korthals, Dept. of Applied Philosophy, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands Paul B. Thompson, Dept. of Philosophy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, U.S.A. Editorial Board Timothy Beatley, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, U.S.A. Lawrence Busch, Dept. of Sociology, Michigan State University, Lansing, U.S.A. Anil Gupta, Centre for Management in Agriculture, Gujarat, India Richard Haynes, Dept. of Philosophy, University of Florida, Gainesville, U.S.A. Daryl Macer, The Eubios Ethics Institute, University of Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan Ben Mepham, Centre for Applied Bio-Ethics, School of Biosciences, University of Nottingham, Loughborough, United Kingdom Dietmar Mieth, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany Egbert Schroten, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

3 THE TASTE FOR ETHICS An Ethic of Food Consumption By Christian Coff Centre for Ethics and Law, Copenhagen, Denmark Translator Edward Broadbridge

4 A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN (HB) ISBN (HB) ISBN (e-book) ISBN (e-book) Published by Springer, P.O. Box 17, 3300 AA Dordrecht, The Netherlands. Printed on acid-free paper All Rights Reserved 2006 Springer No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Printed in the Netherlands.

5 CONTENTS Acknowledgements Foreword Preface List of Tables and Figures About the Author vii ix xi xvii xix Part I Food and Ethics 1 Chapter 1: Eating, Society and Ethics 3 1. THE INTIMACY OF EATING AND DIGESTION 6 2. EATING IN BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH THE SOCIAL MEANING OF THE MEAL FOOD AND ETHICS IN HISTORY FOOD ETHICS AND THE PRODUCTION HISTORY 21 Part II The Intellectualization of Food 31 Chapter 2: Food to Science: On the Intellectualization of Food THE HERMENEUTIC APPROACH OF EARLY NATURAL HISTORY THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL APPROACH OF LATE NATURAL HISTORY BIOLOGY AND THE INVISIBLE CHARACTERISTICS OF LIFE THE END OF PHENOMENOLOGY IN BIOLOGY 50 Chapter 3: The Storylessness of Food THE HISTORY OF INDUSTRIALIZATION OF AGRICULTURE FOOD SCIENCE AND GASTRONOMY THE POWERLESSNESS OF THE POLITICAL CONSUMER 77 v

6 vi CONTENTS 4. THE HIDDEN PRODUCTION HISTORY OF FOOD DO NOTEAT WHAT YOU HAVE NOT READ 89 Part III Food Ethics and the Production History 93 Chapter 4: Tracing the Production History SHORT-RANGE AND LONG-RANGE ETHICS FOOD AS A TRACE THE JUDGEMENT OF TASTE AND MORALITY THE TRACE AS PRESENCE AND LOST TIME HISTORY OF EFFECT PRODUCTION HISTORY AND MIMESIS 130 Chapter 5: Food Ethics as the Ethics of the Trace THE RELIABILITY OF THE PRODUCTION HISTORY FOOD AND ETHICAL IDENTITY FOOD AS A TRACE OF NATURE FOOD ETHICS OF THE CONSUMERS 160 Chapter 6: Traceability and Food Ethics FRAGMENTATION AND TRACEABILITY SOCIOLOGICAL SURVEY ON ETHICAL TRACEABILITY CONSUMER AUTONOMY: REMEMBERING THE OTHER AND INFORMED CHOICE RECOGNIZING CONSUMERS RECOGNIZING PRODUCERS 189 References 203 Index 209

7 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This book has been written as part of several research projects on food ethics that I have carried out at the Centre for Ethics and Law in Copenhagen, Denmark. I am very grateful to the staff at the centre for the inspiring and stimulating discussions on philosophy, ethics and food food, however, being mostly discussed during the lunch breaks. I also wish to thank them for pointing to relevant philosophical literature and discussions as well as for their advice on my use of philosophical literature in the context of food and consumption. Without their stimulation, criticism, patience and comments on my work, this book is unlikely to have seen the light of day. I also extend my thanks to Niels Mattsson Johansen, Peter Kemp, Jacob Rendtorff, Lisbeth Withøfft Nielsen, Emily Hartz and not least to Thomas Achen at Linköping University, Sweden, for introducing me to the philosophy of recognition. The empirical studies mentioned in Chapter Six were conducted in Denmark in 2003 and 2004 in collaboration with Lise Walbom from the Danish Consumers Co-operative Society (FDB). I am grateful to her and the organization for making these rather unconventional studies possible. Translating from Danish to English, and sometimes also from German and French, is indeed a difficult task and at times seems almost impossible. I am therefore grateful for Edward Broadbridge s translation and proofreading of the book. Most of this book was written with the financial support from two grants by the Danish Research Council from 2001 to A small part was written during my time as a coodinator of an EU-supported project entitled Ethical Traceability and Informed Choice in Food Ethical Issues under the sixth framework programme, Science and Society. vii

8 FOREWORD This book marks a new departure in ethics. In our culture ethics has first and foremost been a question of the good life in relation to other people. Central to this ethic was friendship, inspired by Greek thought (not least Aristotle), and the caritas concept from the Judaeo-Christian tradition. Later moral philosophers also included man s relation to animals, and it was agreed that the mistreatment of animals was morally reprehensible. But no early moral teaching discussed man s relation to the origin of foodstuffs and the system that produced them; doubtless the question was of little interest since the production path was so short. The interest in good-quality food is of course an ancient one, and healthy eating habits have often been underlined as a condition for the good life. But before industrialization the production of this food was easy to follow. As a rule, that is no longer the case. The field of ethics must therefore be extended to cover responsibility for the production and choice of foodstuffs, and it is this food ethic that Christian Coff sets out to trace. In doing so he shows how the focus of ethics can be expanded from its concern for the good life on earth with and for others to cover the good life in fair food production practices, and how not least through using our integrity or life coherence we can reflect ethically, or caringly, about living organisms, ecological systems and our human identity. Ethics here is not reduced to a merely personal ethic but embraces a nature ethic, an ethic for our physical lives within the whole of nature. And as an ethic of taste it deals with our relation to all that we eat normally not at the moment of eating, and certainly not when we are gathered for a celebratory meal, but when we are purchasing foodstuffs or producing the raw materials ourselves. In practice this means that whoever is involved in the production of food, as a professional producer or merely as a private citizen growing vegetables or keeping chickens, and in particular as the consumer shopper, ought to be on the lookout for food with the healthiest production history behind it. Food ethics is related to agriculture, its production process and its marketing and distribution and our choices of what to eat. As such, food ethics has very much to do with the safeguarding and promotion of good health, and in this sense it is one of the conditions for a good life. ix

9 x FOREWORD In Coff s study ethics are extended from personal relationships to the traceability of foodstuffs, and thus to our whole relation to nature as the environment of our lives. His pioneering work presents a new way of thinking when we wish to act responsibly for a healthy and good life. It tells us how as consumers we should consider choosing our foodstuffs, as parents for children, as a cook for institutions and so on. But it also concerns everyone involved in producing and presenting foodstuffs in a modern technological society. The Taste for Ethics illuminates a central aspect of the difficulty of being responsible today in the face of a complex production machinery, and in so doing it helps us to become precisely that responsible. Dr. Peter Kemp Professor of Philosophy at the Danish University of Education

10 PREFACE Over the last decade or so large numbers of consumers have acquired a taste for ethics. It is those consumers and their possibilities for action that are in focus in this book. And as always with a new subject, there is inevitably a search for definitions and vocabulary: What is food ethics? Is it indeed possible to have ethics for food? And why has the taste for ethics not emerged among consumers before now? Two factors seem particularly important. First, the abundance of food and the astonishing variety now available to Western consumers make it possible to focus on other questions than the basics of human hunger and the supply of food. Second, the powerful technological development within the life sciences and the risks thereby incurred have brought about new forms of intervention in living nature that have in turn given rise to ethical reflections on food production practices, most notably on the use of gene technology. Especially in Europe this has led to serious controversies between advocates and opponents. Among the latter are many consumers who find it difficult to understand the need for new risky technologies with unforeseen consequences at a time when there is no hunger in the Western world. The advantages for consumers seem small or even totally absent. Another example is the BSE crisis, which has rendered many consumers sceptical or critical about tampering with nature. All in all, food production practices from farming to food processing are thus faced not only with various problems linked to the social aspects of farming and food culture but also with a growing concern for the environment and for animal welfare. And it seems unlikely that future technological development will be able to solve so many problems in the short run. By way of immediate response, an ethical reflection is essential for guidance between what is too much and too little in food production practices. Today, when we are in search of food ethics, we are asking for the vision of the good life with and for others in fair food production practices. 1 1 This is based on Paul Ricœur s definition of ethics: Aiming at the good life for and with others in just institutions (Oneself as Another, ch. 7). I have made two changes. First, Ricœur borrows the phrase aiming at from Aristotle s definition of ethics (aiming at the good life) in The Nicomachean Ethics. I prefer to use vision of instead of aiming at. Second, because the subject here is food ethics, institutions has been replaced by food production practices. xi

11 xii PREFACE Indeed, it is not an exaggeration to speak of a food crisis, not in the sense of a supply crisis but of an ethical crisis. Food researchers and food industries are ready to use the new opportunities stemming from technological development, whereas critical consumers seem to want to slow, or even halt, this development. The designation crisis signifies the dissolution of a given order and indicates a formless intermediate position, a turning point or a transformation, before a new order has been established. A crisis creates a situation dominated by instability, the outcome of which by definition is impossible to foresee. The word crisis comes from ancient Greek and is derived from the verb to distinguish or to decide. In Chinese the concept of crisis contains a twofold meaning and therefore consists of two signs: one for beginning and one for end. If the changes brought about by the crisis are dramatic, they might result in a revolution that is irreversible and in a violent change of the existing order. Food production practices are therefore in crisis, for there is a dissolution of the existing order, characterized by numerous attempts to distinguish between good and bad food production practices and good and bad technological developments. Food is a subject in the life sciences, agriculture, economy, the culinary art and aesthetics. It is also a subject within sociology, anthropology and psychology, but it has so far only been a very peripheral subject in philosophy the reason perhaps being that food is a somewhat earth-bound and materialistic subject, difficult to raise to higher philosophical levels than the purely utilitarian considerations of costs and benefits. Utilitarianism is an important aspect of food ethics that it would be foolish to overlook and one that, in the reflections of most people, is an integrated part of any food ethic. But this is certainly not the only way we think about, and relate to, food. Dealing with food ethics in a non-utilitarian way is a venture, and an even bigger venture for an agronomist like myself. Agro means soil and it follows that agronomists are occupied with the rules and laws of the soil. I am therefore running the risk of being considered a peasant philosopher the name assigned by the French philosopher Emmanuel Lévinas ( ) to the German philosopher Martin Heidegger ( ). According to Lévinas, Heidegger had no understanding of the relationship between human beings, but only of that between man and nature (nature was called die Erde, the earth, by Heidegger). Grasping one s own existence and the understanding of the self was the main task of philosophy, said Heidegger. In his view the presence of others does not complement but rather disturbs the existence of the self. Food ethics is of course a relationship between man and nature, but it should not be limited to that and therefore we do not need to follow in the footsteps of Heidegger. I hope it will become clear to readers of this book that food ethics is also a question of the relationship between human beings. If we dwell briefly on Lévinas and follow his ideas about peasant philosophy, it is reasonable to state that agriculture is an occupation for those who

12 PREFACE xiii have no understanding of the relationship between human beings. Looking at the present agricultural practices and their often very poor public image I am tempted to say that Lévinas was right. Today machines have replaced manpower, so that on most farms only a single person tills the soil. In many cases farming has become an isolated occupation with limited social contact. The word peasant is used in a condescending manner to refer to somebody stupid or foolish. How has this come about? I believe it is because those who are bright and wise enough have left agriculture behind and devoted themselves to tasks that they consider a bigger challenge to mental activity; they have left the hard, manual grind of tilling the soil to those who cannot think. If the idea of the peasant in its negative sense is taken seriously, farming and food production is an occupation for those who do not know how to think. Leaving farming and food production to those who cannot think is the same as not giving any thought to food and not paying any attention to it. This is of course a surprising claim that ought to be amplified. For in a manner of speaking it seems that we are thinking more about food than ever before. We think about food in at least three ways. First, it is seen as part of a social context. The consumption of food usually takes place under social circumstances and contributes to a person s identity or self-understanding and social position. Second, food has an aesthetic dimension as prepared taste. Food is prepared aesthetics when cooked, and natural or non-prepared aesthetics in its more raw or natural form. A lot of attention is paid to transforming food from its natural to its prepared form. Third, intellectual activity is used to rationalize food production and food processing by scientific and economic means. So one has to ask, in what sense do we not pay any attention to food? The claim should be understood to mean that we do not think about food in its broad context but reduce it to one or more of the areas mentioned. Knowledge about food is often very specific and detailed. For instance, if we consider the huge number of very popular cookbooks available, it is evident that a large amount of detailed knowledge about cooking exists. This is in itself not a problem. It only becomes a problem when it prevents us from a wider understanding of food and food production in societal and environmental contexts when the detailed knowledge excludes food ethics as the vision of the good life with and for others in just, fair, etc. food production practices. In Part II of the book I describe how and why these detailed and simultaneously reductionist views of food have become dominant in our culture. I also criticize the narrow understanding of food because in my view this often prevents us from seeing the ethical aspects of food production and consumption. In a sense the book is an attempt to rehabilitate the concept of peasants, to focus on the positive instead of the negative understanding of the word and to investigate the link between food production practices and philosophy. This means that

13 xiv PREFACE I will try to bring together the often rather abstract thoughts of philosophers regarding present food production practices and vice versa, to consider food not only as substance and economics but to give these a history and an ethic. Foodstuffs have an origin and a history before they are consumed. This history can be known or unknown to the consumer; it can be of importance or of no importance. However, if ethics is to have any meaning in relation to food, it is in the production history of the food being processed that it must be found. Food ethics as it is developed here is based on humanist traditions such as phenomenology, hermeneutics and semiology, which together are used in the analysis of our sensuous and reflective relationship to food. This description and analysis leads to the central aim of the book: an investigation of the possibilities for consumers to bring their own food ethics into action. For this reason food ethics is here also developed as a narrative ethics; it is the recounting or the self-experience of the production history that forms the basis for the ethical attitude to food. Today most people in Western Europe are living in urban areas, and their contact with nature, not to mention agriculture, is therefore rather limited. Living in cities where most things are made for specific purposes, we are tempted to adopt the same kind of thinking in our reflections on nature. We see it in terms of utility and benefit. There is one way, though, in which even city dwellers are in contact with nature every day: through food. Food comes from nature; it is made from nature. This immediately suggests that food could function as a starting point for a consumer ethics for the natural environment. It is my intention to see how far we can go in thinking of food ethics as a way of mediating an ethic for the environment and nature. Food is made from nature, but in the preparation and cooking of food nature is transformed into culture. As culture, food is a part of the relations between human beings and as such it is also an intermediary in those relations. But just as much as we are likely to forget that food is made from nature, so are the consequences of food consumption for other people e.g. those involved in food production somewhat obscure. During the writing of this book I was also involved from 1998 to 2002 in the establishment of a consumer-supported agricultural guild called Landbrugslauget, housed close to Copenhagen. This is organized as a shareholder farm: 500 consumers, mainly from Copenhagen, own the farm Brinkholm together with the farmers. This makes it possible for the consumers to acquire a deeper understanding of agriculture and food production practices. The consumers get to learn about the production history in another way than they would otherwise have done. Working with this project has given me much inspiration and can in some sense be considered a part of the empirical basis of the present book. I would like to add a few remarks on the methods I have employed, or more precisely the methods that developed when working with the issue of food

14 PREFACE xv ethics. The book consists of an introductory Part I giving a general presentation of the specific kind of food ethics that is developed in this book. Part II consists of two chapters, the first being a critical analysis of the dominant scientific food regime of the industrialized countries. The criticism is directed towards the narrow and therefore also limited understanding of food and the consequences of the prevailing food production practices in most industrialized countries. Chapter Two shows how the development of modern biology as a natural science has turned into an intellectualization of the living and hence also of food. Chapter Three deals with the more practical implications of the intellectualization of food as they appear in everyday life. In Part III, I make a more constructive and philosophical response to the criticism. Chapter Four explores from a philosophical point of view the possibilities for consumers to relate ethically to food. This is followed by Chapter Five, which goes into more detail with regard to how food can be used as a way of relating to the environment, to others and to society. Chapter Six, the last one, presents the results from an empirical study on ethical traceability and discusses the issue of recognition in relation to ethical consumption. As mentioned, the literature on food ethics is still sparse and only a few philosophers have written on the subject of food. Apart from the empirical inspiration from consumer-supported agriculture and the empirical survey referred to in Chapter Six, my method has to a large extent consisted of exploring philosophical and ethical writings, which I believed would be fruitful from a food-ethical perspective even though most of these philosophical writings are not about food at all. The idea is not to provide a critique of these philosophers shortcomings but to use their work in a pragmatic way in order to elicit a new form of food ethics.

15 LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 1. Consumer attitudes. Selected results from the Nordic Council of Ministers (2001). 4 Table 2. Ethical matrix showing three ethical principles and appropriate organisms (e.g. animals and crops), producers (e.g. farmers and employees in the food industry), consumers and biota. 26 Table 3. Overview of the most important areas of food science. 72 Table 4. Traceability functions. 172 Table 5. Main results from an empirical survey on ethical traceability. 179 Figure 1. The discursive world of foodstuffs from a psychological point of view. 125 Figure 2. Example in Danish of the Internet communication of the production history of the bread. 177 xvii

16 ABOUT THE AUTHOR Christian Coff (b. 1968) is Doctor of Philosophy and Research Director at the Centre for Ethics and Law, Copenhagen. He studied agricultural science at the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University of Copenhagen (Denmark), Ecole Nationale Supérieure Agronomique Montpellier (France), Bundesanstalt für Züchtungsforschung and Technische Universität München (Germany). He is the founder of an organization for consumer-supported agriculture, called Landbrugslauget, close to Copenhagen. He is currently leading several research projects on food, ethics and consumption. His academic interests include philosophical and ethical issues relating to food, consumption and environment. xix